A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
